At first they came for the smokers but I did not speak out as I did not smoke. Then they came for the binge drinkers but I said nothing as I did not binge. Now they have an obesity strategy.

Monday, July 13, 2009

I didn't say that ...

Would it have been worth while,To have bitten off the matter with a smile,To have squeezed the universe into a ballTo roll it toward some overwhelming question,To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—If one, settling a pillow by her head,Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.That is not it, at all.”

Christina Odone provides a curious defence of patriarchal religion in her review of Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom's new book, Does God Hate Women?.

But in explaining how God is dragged into this systemic abuse, the authors are guilty of the flawed logic they abhor in macho regimes. An attractive woman in a miniskirt who walks down the street is not responsible for the men who, distorting her attitude, read it as an invitation to rape; so God, in his many guises, cannot be held responsible for the men who distort his message into an invitation to abuse others.

Benson and Stangroom are atheists, as am I, and so they are talking about the development of religion as a misogynistic ideology, not the views of a non-existent God. However, the defective communication skills of an omnipotent God is an odd argument for a theist to deploy. It must be really frustrating, all that effort at revelation and still the buggers get it wrong.

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About Me

This is the work avoidance strategy and ego trip of Peter Ryley, who has just retired, despite being far too young, from working in lifelong learning, latterly at the University of Hull, and from teaching part-time at Manchester Metropolitan University. I live partly in Manchester and the rest of the time in Pelion, Greece. I continue to research and write on the history of Anarchism, and have frequent rants about the importance and current parlous state of adult education.